ABSTRACT
The concept of sustainable production was first mentioned and discussed at the United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Sustainable production and procurement is therefore gradually becoming a basic premise for implementing business in the Western world. The UN commission on sustainable development has determined that the sustainable production and consumption patterns are important cross-cutting issues to be raised at the commission’s annual meetings. Sustainable production includes the concept of “clean technologies” or referred to as CleanTech where companies are encouraged to conserve resources. Environmental management, characterized by ISO 14001, has been one of the management tools that companies have applied. The establishment of the fair trade concept and the fair trade label are results of the growing consumer interest in ethical supplier relations. Companies that work with responsible sourcing often make use of code of conducts, which in practice really means “guidelines for how we do things around here”.
